Human Growth and Development / Unit 16 HGD 2256 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Integrity Versus Despair
The idea
Erikson's final crisis, integrity versus despair, arises as people face life's end and undertake a life review: reflecting on and evaluating their accomplishments, relationships and decisions, and how they made meaning. Integrity is accepting one's life as a whole with a positive outlook. Despair is regret over bad decisions and missed chances. Stage theories are criticized for oversimplifying continuous development, and psychoanalytic theories as unscientific, yet data support Erikson's components.
In practice
Two eighty-year-olds reviewing the same kind of life: one concluding it was imperfect but worthwhile, the other dwelling on roads not taken.
Where people slip
Exam items describe a late-life reflection and ask for the stage: acceptance points to integrity, bitterness and regret to despair. Integrity versus despair is the eighth and last of Erikson's crises. The life review is also a feature of advanced old age more generally, helping people confront and cope with its challenges.
Your place on the trail
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